


Spring Fever

by cleflink



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Pre-Canon, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-21
Updated: 2012-07-21
Packaged: 2017-11-10 09:37:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleflink/pseuds/cleflink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Sam's first spring at Stanford and all he can think about is what he's missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring Fever

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt _"I'm as restless as a willow in a windstorm/ I'm as jumpy as a puppet on a string/ I'd say that I had spring fever/ But I know it isn't spring"_ for spnmysteryyears.

The first spring, Sam goes a little stir crazy.

He ignores it, to begin with. Half the campus has been climbing the walls since the middle of the Winter Quarter anyway - it's no surprise that Sam's just as tired of the bleak, miserable weather and the endless slog of finals and reports as the rest of them. He just needs a break, a short breather to get his equilibrium back before the new quarter picks up in earnest, and he'll be fine. It's as easy as that.

And the little voice inside his head that tells him he's full of shit can shut the hell up, thanks very much.

It works, for a while. He commiserates with classmates about sandy beaches and string bikinis, researches local resorts and tourist spots so he can make up bullshit stories of school trips and long-ago family vacations. He complains about his workload and goes out on the occasional weekend, lamenting that he doesn't have the money to go to Cancun or wherever it is that other people think the best beaches are. Casual and totally normal. Just like he's always wanted. He's getting pretty good at it.

But the unsettled feeling in his bones only gets worse as the quarter wears on and, as temperatures start to climb, Sam catches himself longing for the open road, the challenge of the unknown, the familiar weight of a loaded handgun.

He's not really surprised, if he's being honest with himself. Spring has always been a time for packing up and moving on for the Winchesters - no more threats of hypothermia and icy roads to compel Dad to keep them holed up somewhere safe-ish - and Sam's whole being is yearning to shake of the winter stillness and do _something_ before he goes crazy. Which is just stupid and unfair on every level. 

Sam's never been fond of spring. Spring means getting uprooted from places he'd tentatively been thinking of as home and starting at new schools where the textbooks are different and nobody cares to know him. It's being left behind while Dad goes off on hunts and Dean sulks in silence about not getting to go with him. It's grueling training regimens and trying to do homework in the backseat of the Impala, sleepless nights and watching his family come home hurt. Sam's glad to be rid of it, all of it, and if that was all the spring reminded him of it'd be easy to move on.

But.

But spring is also the endless rumble of the Impala through his bones, lulling and strong and constant in a vagabond life that's anything but. It's mud-splattered practice bouts in oversaturated fields that leave him and Dean soaked to the skin and laughing while Dad shakes his head almost-tolerantly at the pair of them. It's the smell of sun-warmed leather and aftershave when he leans in and Dean slings a careless arm around him, warm and solid and real.

This is Sam's first spring without all of those things and it twists up something painful in his chest to realize that he's never going to have them again. Not unless he wants to give up on his dreams of a real future to go chase after a driven, embittered father and a brother who doesn't know how to dream for himself.

Sam wonders what Dean's doing right now and kind of hates himself for it.

Spring is strange without Dean in it. Sam's done a good job so far of convincing himself it doesn't matter - he's had more than enough to do between throwing himself into his schoolwork and creating a life for himself that's actually _normal_ to keep him from paying much attention to the fact that his brother's not around - but the tug of spring in his veins demands change, movement, challenge, and Sam's never had any of those things without Dean being right there with him. It's like there's suddenly a Dean-shaped space just over his left shoulder, one that feels sometimes like there could be a Dean in it if he just stretched out his arm to grab.

Which is ridiculous of course, but once the idea worms into his brain Sam can't get rid of it. Sam glimpses short-haired men with broad shoulders and heavy jackets and does wild, hair-whirling double takes that Dean would have laughed his ass off at if he'd been around to see them. Sam hears the roar of a classic car in the street and listens automatically for mullet rock. Sam will deny to his dying day just how often he stares at his phone as though he could will Dean to call him on it, how often he wastes long nights imagining the way he'd be able to hear Dean grinning over the line, cocksure and warm as he complains how _this curb isn't exactly comfy Sammy, let me in already before your neighbours call the cops._ It's all surprisingly easy to picture.

But the swaggering men aren't ever Dean and the purring engines aren't ever the Impala and his call display doesn't ever say _Dean_. Sam thinks that shouldn't feel as much like betrayal as it does. 

Because his brother's part of a package deal, and Sam knows that. Dean's already had the chance to come with Sam once and Sam's not going to ask again. Even if this is the worst spring he can remember up to and including that year with the banshee in Michigan.

So Sam firmly disregards the itch in his spine and the wanderlust ricocheting through his brain, finds new ways to enjoy the warmer weather that don't involve road trips or buckshot or shovels. And if he looks sometimes at his phone and ponders, just for a moment, how easy it would be to dial the number burning in the back of his brain, at least the feeling never lasts long.

It's just spring fever, anyway.

\---

The first spring, Dean goes to Palo Alto.

He knows he shouldn't. Dad would kick his ass if he knew, hell, _Sammy_ would kick his ass and probably stomp all over Dean's stupid heart a few times for good measure. Kid's always been good at that.

Dean's not about to let that stop him, though.

He heads up to Stanford right after the spring thaw, making a point of not looking at the papers for a solid week beforehand so he can't feel guilty about dragging his heels getting back into hunting. He doesn't tell Dad where he's going. He doesn't make any attempt at actually going to see Sammy either, not when he figures he's a lot more likely to get greeted with a fist to the face than with a beer and a clap on the shoulder. He just, checks up on him, skulks around Stanford for a week or so in the yuppiest, most ordinary student clothing he can bring himself to actually wear, making sure things are going okay.

The whole time, Dean's on his best behaviour. He doesn't get drawn into any bar fights - doesn't _start_ any bar fights either, even though some of these college kids are so useless it makes his teeth ache (Dean is seriously unimpressed if these are the best and brightest the country has on offer) - doesn't sit parked outside Sammy's dorm at night (okay for a few hours, tops, on the first night, but that's just because he can't be bothered to find himself a motel after driving in from fucking Iowa), doesn't use the copy of his brother's schedule he charmed off one of the secretaries to crash his classes (as if he wants to sit in the back being bored and conspicuous). He's not that much of an idiot. And really, if Dean can sneak up on all manner of supernatural sons of bitches with a shotgun in hand and a foot long knife down his boot he can fucking well stalk his own dork brother without getting caught.

He _does_ see Sammy on the campus a few times, from far enough off that Dean can't get noticed, even dares to follow him into the campus bar the one time his shiny new college buddies convince the dumbass to go out drinking instead of sitting in his room writing papers or looking at porn or whatever the hell it is he does up there. Dean keeps his distance. Stays away from the bar, the pool tables, the open floor. Never lets himself get close enough to catch eyes, let alone touch. Sammy doesn't want him here, after all, and Dean isn't about to let his kid brother find out that he really is just this pathetic. That's hard enough to deal with on the inside of Dean's head.

Sammy looks good, Dean decides eventually. Tired and stressed out, sure, but Dean knows enough about how the world thinks it works to know that's pretty much par for the course at college. What his brother really looks is focused, determined, like he's got something of his own to shoot for and everyone had better get the fuck out of his way because he's not stopping to let 'em cross. It's a good look for him, one that matures him a lot more than eight months away should have been able to, and Dean would hate him for it if he wasn't busy being so fucking proud of him he could burst.

Because Sammy fits here. Fits in a way that he never wanted to with Dean and Dad, in a way that Dean could never manage in a million years. Sammy makes normal look like something worth having and Dean wishes to hell and back that he could blame the sick feeling in his stomach on envy.

Sammy's never called. Not once. Dean figures even he can take a hint like that.

The ache that gnaws at him when he finally gives up and hightails it out of Palo fucking Alto like a pack of werewolves are chewing on the bumper leaves him feeling almost worse than the emptiness that's been there since he put his baby brother on a bus all those months ago and the bastard didn't even wave goodbye. Because Sammy's got his life now, the one he's always wanted, and there's no room in it for Dean. And Dean doesn't want that life, not for himself, but he wants it for Sammy, even if he can't even fool himself into thinking that the knowledge that Sammy wants a Dean-free life doesn't cut straight through him. At least it's only in the places where no one else can see him bleed.

Dean spends his first night outside of Stanford getting drunk off his ass and generally making a loud, obnoxious nuisance of himself, then hares out the next day to find something nasty to kill. He's wasted enough time already and the spring's a wasting.

All the same, Dean thinks he might hate spring now, just a little.

\---

The second spring, Sam goes to Palm Beach with Jessica for a week in the sun.

\---

Dean goes anywhere that isn't Palo Alto.

 

~fin


End file.
